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by Les Oldridge, AMIRTE, MIMI
The Construction and Use Regulations (16)
French domiciled company from being lawhAed.
With hindsight, Cawthorn and Sinclair would not have started the French company with an office in the centre of Paris. No commercial vehicles can make physical contact with the Paris office and remote control by telephone leaves much to be desired, in principle. The Le Havre complex which is much more recent provides all that can be desired in terms of operational control.
For some years to come, until British Continental operators have built up a substantial business, the choice of location for a principal office/base across the Channel will be a difficult one. Cawthorn and Sinclair, much of whose traffic passes on the Southampton-Le Havre ferry service, are well satisfied with their Le Havre depot but they are actively exploring sites adjacent to the heavily industrialized areas in Common Market countries.
Mufti-lingual drivers Opinions differ among operators as to the need for drivers to have linguistic ability. Experienced drivers with a working knowledge of French and German are obvious candidates for Continental work. Mr Dunlevy suggested that it sometimes helped in practice if a driver could not speak the language when operating abroad! There are obvious instances where police or customs officials may give the benefit of the doubt to a British driver who is bereft of the right lingo! I suspect that drivers with natural or acquired fluency in two or three languages will command the most highly paid and responsible jobs in the next decade.
The recent acquisition of Cawthorn and Sinclair by Price and Pearce Ltd, part of the Tozer Kemsley and Millbourne group, is likely to reinforce Continental operations since the group's diverse interests call for considerable exporting and importing. The advantage to any large diverse trading company of an experienced international road haulage fleet does not need to be stressed; similar acquisitions make good sense.
One of the biggest hurdles faced by any newcomer to international haulage is the need to train staff to be fully competent in documention. The reputation gained over a period of years by a firm of standing in the industry is priceless. Because of the documentary problem mergers between road haulage concerns and experienced freight forwarding companies offers one solution to what can otherwise prove an expensive training process.
Cawthorn and Sinclair, who -confess to having spent about three weeks making sure their documentation was in order before their first essay into Europe in 1964, now think nothing of dispatching 18 vehicles overseas on a Saturday morning. Attention to detail, careful training of staff and the professional approach to customer service has paid dividends. Their freedom from goods in transit claims for a period of eight years is an extraordinary achievement in relation to the diw..rsity of valuable and easily damaged loads carried. REGULATION 94 of the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1969 is of interest only to the vintage commercial vehicle enthusiast because it deals with steam-propelled vehicles. It stipulates that, unless two persons are on the footplate driving the wagon, the vehicle must be stopped whenever it is necessary to attend to the furnace.
Regulation 95 reads "No person in charge of a motor vehicle or trailer shall cause or permit it to stand on a road so as to cause any unnecessary obstruction thereof." In recent years many streets in urban areas have been made the subject of "No waiting" and "Limited waiting" orders and these orders are used to control the parking of vehicles instead of the Regulation under discussion. The C and U offence of obstruction is preferred, however, in cases of unreasonable parking on roads where no parking restrictions are in force. This offence can be committed on any road, in the residential cul-de-sac, on a trunk road or in a country lane, it matters not.
There is a wealth of case law on this subject. In Ellis v Smith (1962) I WL12 1486 a bus stood at a bus stop long enough to cause an unnecessary obstruction because a relief driver was late in arriving. It was held that the driver who was going off duty was in charge of the bus until he handed it over to the relief driver, and therefore he, though not necessarily he alone, had caused the bus to stand on the road so as to cause the obstruction.
What does 'unnecessary' mean?
There has been much argument as to what exactly is "unnecessary obstruction" and there is even conflict in the reported cases dealing with this aspect. In Solomon v Dunbridge (1956) 120 JP 231 it was held that leaving a vehicle on a road for an unreasonable time might constitute an "unnecessary obstruction" but in a more recent case, Evans v Barker (1971) 5 CL 375 it was said that a driver is not to be convicted of causing an unnecessary obstruction if he has left his car only for a reasonable time even if it amounts to an obstruction.
Where a taxi, attempting a "U" turn in Oxford Street, London, brought traffic to a halt for nearly a minute, it was held that there was evidence upon which an obstruction could be found as a fact and the conviction stood despite the driver's plea that his conduct had not been unreasonable. Wall v Williams (1966) Crim LR50.
Generally speaking, it is prudent to co-operate with the police; the average British copper is a reasonable chap often
doing a difficult job. If he asks a driver to move a vehicle he probably has a very good reason for doing so and it does not pay to become obstreperous. This is illustrated by the case of Geberg v Miller (1961) IWLR 153. In this case the defendant refused to move his vehicle, which was obstructing the highway, when requested to do so by a police officer and removed the rotor arm to prevent it from being moved. It was held that this amounted to obstructing the officer in the execution of his duty under the Police Act 1964.
Still dealing with stationary vehicles, Regulation 96 makes it an offence, except with the permission of a uniformed police officer, to park a motor vehicle at night on the 'offside of the road. Exemptions to this Regulation include police, fire brigade, ambulance and defence vehicles if compliance with the Regulation would hinder the use of the vehicle for the purpose for which it is being used; vehicles parked in one-way streets; vehicles used for building or demolition operations; the repair of another vehicle, the removal of any obstruction to traffic or in connection with road repairs.
Road Safety Earlier in this series I discussed the requirement for engines to be stopped on stationary vehicles to prevent unnecessary noise. Regulation 97 stipulates that the engine must be switched off and the parking brake applied when the vehicle is stationary if it is not attended by a person licensed tc drive it. Obviously this Regulation is aimed at road safety and to prevent vehicles from running away; presumably it is thought thai the vibration from an engine which ticking over might cause the handbrake tc jump off. It should be noted that it is noi necessarily the driver who should be ir attendance any person licensed to drive wil suffice. This person need not be in the driver's seat, he only has to be "ir attendance". So far as I know this term hat never been defined but one would think tin ordinary meaning applies.
Exemptions are made for fire brigade police and ambulance vehicles and fa vehicles engaged in operations which requiri their engines to be kept running to drivi machinery or apparatus mounted on then or to maintain the batteries in a charge( condition for driving such machinery cc apparatus. In the latter case the engine cat only be run if there is no likelihood o danger being caused. One is expected tc take extra precautions, for example, if it wa: necessary for the engine to be run while du vehicle was standing on a gradient.